Who is The Richest Person in The World?
Published by One person is coming up the richest rankings at breakneck speed. Who is it? it’s Gina Rinehart.
There’s a lot of talk about who is the richest person in the world. Some names mentioned are Carlos Slim, Warren Buffett, the Walmart and Microsoft founders and others. And these are all people whose wealth can be verified by the public information available, but it must be remembered that there are many stupendously rich individuals whose wealth is deliberately hidden from public view, Stanley Ho, of Hong Kong being a good example.
However, there is one person who entered the really rich group only recently but who has shot up the list in only a few years to become the present richest woman in the world. And if she continues at the breakneck speed she is going now, she will, within a few more years, be able to claim the title of the richest person in the world also.
So who is she? Well, her name is still not a household word throughout the world, but she is already a major figure in the land of her birth, Australia. Her name is Gina Rinehart, and her fortune derives from her ownership of colossal deposits of coal, iron ore and other minerals. Her current net worth is said to be US$18 billion.
Gina, ( from Georgina), aged 58, is the only child of Lang Hancock, an Australian prospector who spent a lifetime accumulating mining leases on huge parcels of land thought by most people to be fit only for the raising of cattle and sheep. But Lang proved right and vast deposits of iron ore were discovered on his land, iron ore which stoked the fires of China’s booming economy. Income from these iron ore mines started to flood in but further developments did not stop, and enormous new mines are scheduled to begin operating over the next few years.
Lang died in 1992 leaving all his estate to Gina, but with a large part of it placed in the Hope Margaret Hancock Trust, with Gina the only trustee and her four children the beneficiaries. As Gina seems intent of keeping sole control of her business empire, this has led to friction with her children, which resulted in three of them taking their mother to court. This dispute, regarding control of the Trust remains unsettled.
To give you an idea of the scale of Gina’s operations, here are some figures;-
Hope Downs Mine – 30 million tons iron ore per year
Alpha Coal Mine (2013) – 30 ” “ coal ” “
Kevin Corner mine (2013) - 30 ” “ “ “ “
Roy Hill Mine (2013) – 55 ” “ iron ore ” “
Gina has been married twice, with two children from each marriage. Her first husband was British with the union ending in divorce and the second was to an American, Frank Rinehart, who died in 1990. With her vast fortune, Gina has now established herself as a power in the Australian publishing and media business, and there is no knowing where she will invest her money next. Her political views are generally conservative.
But with her income growing by leaps and by bounds there is sure to come a time when she will be hailed as the world’s richest person
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